Reflections
by vault of glass
Summary: A series of one-shots that will all contain sex - a lot of it. Nothing too kinky, but enough to warrant a cold shower or two. Characters will jump around quite a bit, but there are a few favorites I will return to more than once.


**The first of hopefully many Mass Effect one-shots. Just to clarify: I am and always will be a Garrus girl at heart. But even the most steadfast of us have our Thane moments (you do, don't even deny it!) This is one such moment that just wouldn't leave me the hell alone until I wrote about it. Voila!**

**The series won't be half as serious as the title makes it seem, but that's the name of the piece that plays in the game when Shepard is gettin' busy. I found it appropriate.**

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* * *

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Low lighting bloomed to life as Shepard stepped into her old apartment. The soft glow illuminated the white couches and sleek glass coffee table that had been bought and never used. Her boots sank into white, plush carpet as her eyes gave the room a cursory scan.

It had been a while, that much was for certain.

Tucking a lock of jet black hair behind an ear, Shepard walked along the bookshelf that was filled with books she'd never touched. Sure, she'd read most of them, but not these copies. These were just fillers. She ran her fingertips over the top of the bookshelf, where there were pictures of family members and friends. Her father, stoic and cold, beside her mother, hair cut short and smiling, both in respective Alliance uniform. One of Ash, lips pulled up into that quirky smile of hers. Another of her and Garrus, grinning and drunk out of their minds. Her lips curled into a smile as she touched the frame, remembering that night.

_Ryncol is not for humans._ _At least, not for humans who were just rejected by their ex-boyfriends after a two-year-coma. A lesson to keep in mind._

She grimaced as she recalled vomiting violently into a toilet in the men's restroom, Garrus cackling wildly over her shoulder and struggling to hold her hair back as he stumbled on his feet.

"Do you actually _remember_ that night?"

Shepard turned and grinned at the turian as he strolled up beside her. "Bits and pieces. Mostly the vomiting part."

"Ah. The most exciting part by far." Garrus chuckled as she made a face at him and pointed down her hallway. "Now if you don't mind, I'm going to shower and fall asleep. I always feel dirty after dealing with C-Sec."

Shepard snorted and nodded. "Go on, you big baby."

He shook his head and tromped down the hallway. Shepard ran a hand over the arm of the nearest couch. Her fingers toyed with the soft white material, cool and still brand-new. She hadn't actually cared what she filled the apartment with. She knew she'd never really use it anyways. At least it came in handy tonight.

She drifted toward the bar, lights shooting on as soon as her feet touched the tile behind the counter. Her hands found the bottle and glass and she poured herself a drink without any thought. The ice tinkling into the glass echoed around the empty room. Her mind drifted, thick with worry.

_I have less than a year to live._

The icy cold of the liquid against her lips barely registered in her mind.

_We must carry the weight of our decisions, Shepard._

Disturbing images churned through her thoughts, memories of another's memories. She wiped beads of sweat from her forehead with the back of her wrist and sat down on the edge of a couch. She curled her feet up behind her thighs and took a long drink.

_Kolyat, I've taken many bad things out of this world. You're the only good thing I've ever added to it._

Shepard bit down on her bottom lip as it quivered. Her fingers shook around the glass in her hands.

"Shepard?"

Her head shot up, quickly swiping a hand under her eyes before she turned to see Garrus.

He fidgeted awkwardly in loose pants, probably the turian equivalent of sweats. He rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah, tough mission, wasn't it?"

Shepard gave him a jerk of her head to protest, but gave up under his withering stare. "Yeah," she agreed quietly. "Tough."

"It's not easy watching someone you care for go through that." Translation: I know you have the hots for him.

"It's never easy watching anyone go through that." Translation: Mind your own damn business, you snoopy turian.

He snorted, allowing her to win their game. "Fine. I assume you're waiting up for him."

She nodded wordlessly, showing him her drink. "I've got everything I need."

"Good. He . . ." He paused, squinting as if pained to be speaking seriously about another male. "He needs someone to look after him, no matter what he says."

Her fingers traced the rim of her glass and she looked down. "I think so, yeah."

"Anyways," he huffed, shaking his head. "Going to bed now. G'night, Shepard."

"Night, Garrus." She listened to the sound of his footsteps on carpet and then the quiet click of a door closing. Her toes flexed against the soles of her feet as she took another drink, grimacing when the strong liquor hit her tongue. Garrus was a great friend, handy with a sniper rifle and even handier with his sarcastic sense of humor, but he wasn't the great conversationalist – and, to be completely honest, Shepard had never felt comfortable opening up to anyone. Her parents had been Alliance war heroes: strong, unmovable, but no good at picking apart the emotional complexity of their teenaged daughter. Consequently, Shepard went through life with the notion that nobody cared and nobody would ever care.

_Thane._

Thane cared. Or at least, she supposed, cheeks pinking as she realized she was thinking about him for what had to be the thousandth time that day, he _seemed_ to care. Every time she found herself wandering back down to Life Support, he was there to watch her every motion as she hoisted herself up onto the table, elbows resting on her knees, eyes flickering around in their hesitance to actually meet the endless depth of his. He hung on her every word, no matter how trivial or silly. And when she slipped up and actually said something about how she actually _felt_, he would perk up and be all the more interested. He bided his time before he spoke, fingers laced as he situated the words around in his head. She liked that about him. He never wasted his words like she did, in hashed-up attempts to deflect. He only ever spoke when it meant something.

Shepard sighed and rested her chin on the heel of her hand, rolling the ice around in her drink. Of _course_, out of _everyone_ she'd met in the entire galaxy, it had to be a dying drell assassin that she falls for. She kicked out of her boots with jerky, fitful movements, setting her glass down on the coffee table. Grunting in frustration at herself, at the galaxy, at life in general, she unbuckled all of her armor and shunted it all over the back of the couch. Left only in her undershirt and a pair of spandex shorts. Lastly, she removed her bra with a few quick movements and yanked it out of a short sleeve. That, too, was discarded behind the couch. Finally comfortable, Shepard settled down onto her back and closed her eyes.

If she was silent enough, and thought hard enough, she could still hear his voice in her head as they walked out of Talid's apartment.

_Thank you for this opportunity, siha._

_What did you call me, Krios?_

The slight curl of his lips, a sight that was as beautiful as it was rare. _Siha. Some day, I'll tell you what it means._

That solitary promise, spoken in the rasping, muted tones of his voice, sent shivers down her spine. The sentence had set her entire body on fire when it burned in her sensory memory. Now, though, faded into a pathetic excuse of a copy, it left her wanting. Craving for more. Letting out a weary and aggravated sigh, Shepard let go . . . and tumbled into sleep.

* * *

The lights rolled back to life, slowly ushering Shepard back to consciousness. Muted footsteps on carpet and the soft sigh of a breath. She sat up, rubbing sleep from her eyes. "Thane?"

A gentle chuckle: tired, but genuine. "Why is it that you only use my first name when we are alone?"

"Just to confuse you," she muttered, getting to her feet. Once she had blinked past the blur of sleep, she could see his slender body step closer as he closed the door quietly behind him.

"Where is Vakarian?"

"Asleep."

"You waited for me." It wasn't a question.

"I wanted to make sure you got back all right," she confessed, wringing her hands in her lap.

Thane's eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly as he took in her disheveled form. She wondered fleetingly how awful she must look, and what he would think, but the distant look in his eyes made it clear his mind was miles away. She pushed herself up onto her feet and tentatively, slowly, never removing her eyes from his, she moved around the coffee table and stopped just a foot away from him. "But you're not all right . . . are you?"

His lips twitched downward at one end, a split second motion that did not escape her attention. "After many events in lives like ours, siha, 'all right' is a term as ambiguous as it is misused."

Shepard nodded. "Fair point. Let me clarify: by 'all right,' I mean, 'not devastatingly and completely shattered by the reunion with an estranged and broken son, abandoned ten years ago.' Is that better?"

She could have been imagining it, or his mouth could have really momentarily quirked up at one end, the smile squashed away a second later to wherever it is that Thane's smiles go to. "That is an acceptable definition."

"Come." Strengthened by his almost-smile, Shepard gently grabbed his hand and led him toward the sofa. "We don't have to talk about it, but I get the feeling that you won't be able to sleep for a while."

"I don't wish to keep you awake, siha," he protested softly. Despite his words, he took a seat beside her. "And, as apparent by previous conversations, I do not mind exploring my past with you."

His tender admission was enough to make butterflies flutter in her stomach. She smiled shyly at him. "That makes me happy to hear." She let go of his hand once they were situated beside each other and grabbed her glass from the table, more to give herself something to hold and avoid further awkwardness than just letting her hands splay uselessly in her lap. The liquid was much less appealing warm and lit up her taste buds with not a little bit of protest.

"I . . . would like to speak about my son," Thane murmured in his normal muted tone.

Shepard set her glass down, wincing slightly when it clicked loudly against the coffee table. She stuffed her hands between her thighs and glanced up at him through her lashes, nearly losing herself in his black gaze. "How did it go?"

"It was difficult. All things worth keeping are."

"God, I certainly hope not," Shepard mumbled with a frown. "There's got to be something you know of that hasn't been a royal pain in the ass."

_There_ it was, that smile that was just so completely _Thane_. His lips curled upward into her most favorite thing in the world and his eyes flickered downward to his clasped hands as he thought briefly. "Yes, I suppose you're right, siha. There are a few things I do enjoy that have not caused me pain. They are few and far between, but they do exist nonetheless." His stare returned to hers, sending ripples through her nerves and nearly paralyzing her. When feeling returned to her limbs, she took another greedy pull of her drink. She was going to need it. "Are you nervous, siha?" he asked with a hint of teasing in his tone, indicating the glass shaking in her hands.

"Nervous? Nooo," she sang with absolutely no conviction in her voice as she set her now-empty cup back down. "I have no idea what you're talking about. I'm glad you got to see Kolyat," she added, quickly changing the subject from her shaking palms. "I know it may be hard, but at least the process has been started?" She hated how her voice tilted up at the end, forcing her sentence into a question.

Thane nodded, thankfully ignoring it. "You are right as always, siha. Our problems are more than a few words can fix, but maybe . . . eventually . . . he can grow to love me again."

"It shouldn't be difficult," she breathed, captivated by his endless stare. "You are a wonderful person."

"Debatable . . . but not unwelcome." His smile threw her off-kilter, making her realize what she'd said.

"Erm, yeah," she muttered, rubbing the back of her neck as her cheeks burned bright red. "You never explained what 'siha' means," she reminded him.

"Ah, that's right," he hummed, his smile widening as he leaned back and crossed his legs. Always a gentleman. "After Irikah's death, I pursued those responsible. Once I'd eliminated them, I had no other goal. I accepted the Dantius commission because I had nothing else to do."

"Not the healthiest attitude to take on a mission," Shepard observed good-heartedly.

"You're right. It's not. Looking back now, it's clear I'd resigned myself to death. If Nassana's guards caught me afterwards, it would've been a good death. But someone else was moving after the target, forcing me to move faster, challenging me. I had to reach her first."

Shepard smiled, nodding in agreement.

"I met another siha. Few are privileged to meet even one. One of the warrior angels of the goddess Arashu. Fierce in wrath. A tenacious protector." His words lilted through the silent room, lulling her into an almost trance as she listened. When he stopped speaking, Shepard realized she'd been leaning unconsciously toward him and made to pull away, blushing profusely.

When Thane's hands gently curled around her shoulders and pulled her forward, she gasped in surprise. His arms wrapped around her waist as he pulled her close. "Siha. Thank you."

Shepard nearly trembled in his hold. "Anything, Thane. I'm here for you."

He released her halfway, his hands still warm on the skin of her forearms. "A hefty promise from a strong warrior such as you."

"I only promise what I can give," she replied, feeling her body threaten to start sweating again under the force of his eyes.

"Another reason why I am honored to know you." The words left his lips as easily as one might say "howdy-do."

Feeling her cheeks burn in another blush, Shepard laced a fly-away tendril of hair behind her ear and looked away. Their bodies were close after their embrace, shoulders and thighs touching. His body was unbelievably warm beneath the leather of his pants and coat. She felt obligated to make some sort of confession after his flattering sentence, but didn't know how to admit that she'd been thinking about him. She settled with going straight from A to B.

_Fancy words and eloquence be damned._

"I was thinking about you."

Thane had been reaching forward to touch her shoulder and paused, letting her confession register fully in his mind. Finally, he smiled. "And I you, siha. I think of you often." His hand finished its journey and tenderly stroked her shoulder. "More often than I should, in fact. During idle time, yes, but also during battle. When you are near to being injured, it . . . aches." He closed his eyes as it pained by his admission.

"Hey," she whispered comfortingly, taking the hand on her shoulder and pressing it to her face. She leaned into his touch, smiling. "I feel the same way."

When he reopened his eyes, there was a flame sparking hot in the black depths there. "That is not the extent of how I feel . . . siha."

Those words twisted knots in her belly. "Oh, my."

"Oh, my, indeed," he repeated back at her, leaning in close. He planted one hand behind her thighs and closed in when she didn't flinch away. His face was inches away, and then centimeters, and then a mere breath's length. "How am I doing, siha?"

"Almost perfectly," she whispered, fearing her voice might shatter the moment.

His dry, warm lips brushed the skin just beside her mouth. "And now?"

"So close," she gasped, chest heaving as her body threatened to begin hyperventilating.

Then, in earnest desire, Thane cupped her face and held her still as he pressed his mouth to hers. His hesitance and slowness had been abandoned for genuine urgency as he tasted her with a flick of his long tongue. She tasted sweet, of the drink she'd been sipping so desperately earlier. Her hair fell in beautiful tresses around her face and the strands felt soft over his fingers. Her scent was especially concentrated there, light and sweet. Some human flower. He loved it.

A small, strangled sound rumbled through her throat as she closed her arms around his neck and pulled his body over hers. Thane's hand sank into the soft cushion of the couch as he supported himself, using the angle to better explore her fascinating mouth. His tongue rolled over teeth and gums and finally met another tongue. He lapped experimentally, hungrily, at her lips and tongue. Her fingertips ran up around his throat and rubbed the fringes around his jaw line. When he shuddered against her, she pulled her hands away in fear of hurting him.

"No, siha," he rasped, voice husky in his desire. "That feels wonderful." Capturing one of her hands with his, he returned her fingers to the pink fringes.

"Oh," she sighed, resuming her tender stroking. "You taste like cinnamon," she mumbled as he kissed down her cheek to the sensitive skin of her throat.

"I have never tasted cinnamon," he rumbled into her neck.

"I'll have to . . . show you." Words were getting lost in her heavy breathing as his hands slipped under her loose shirt. A groan got tangled somewhere in her throat beneath his lips and he smiled into her skin.

"Are you well?" he asked, pulling back so that she could experience the full strength of his black eyes, dilated in desire.

"Jesus, yes, I'm well," she gasped, looping a leg around his hip. "How do you get this jacket off?" she demanded, fingers fumbling with the many straps and buckles.

"It is simple, when you are not clumsy with passion," he teased, and in a few easy swipes, the jacket was undone. Shepard watched in envy as he tossed it aside as if it had been nothing. Her frustration was quickly erased, though, as her eyes took in his bare chest for the very first time.

"Oh, my God," she breathed, ignoring his smug smile at her response. She didn't care how ridiculous she seemed as she ran her hands down the defined muscles of his body, hard beneath iridescent green scales. Black stripes rolled over his shoulder down toward his pectorals, and again over his forearms and sides. Shepard traced them with hungry, fascinated fingers. "You are beautiful."

"Not a compliment I receive often, siha," he admitted, lowering a swift kiss back to her lips. "But appreciated nonetheless."

Shepard sighed against his mouth, adoring his kisses. He tugged at the bottom of her shirt and she was just raising her arms to assist him in removing it when it happened.

They began floating from the couch. She cursed and scrambled to reach the material beneath her. Funnily enough, she found it easily, despite the near foot of space between them.

"Siha?" Thane asked, and his voice seemed so far away.

She clenched her eyes shut to stave off the waves of nausea rolling through her. "What the hell?" she mumbled, fingers curling into the cushions.

"Oh, damn," Thane muttered, the first time she'd heard him curse. "I forgot."

"Me, too," Shepard gasped, realization rushing through her. She was tripping. Off of Thane's saliva. "_Damn it_." Thane held her to steady her world until the nausea passed. When she felt well enough to open her eyes, she was greeted with the sight of his worried face.

"Don't be concerned," she slurred with an easy smile. "We could always pass the time until I stop hallucinating."

"With what, may I ask?" he breathed, raising a ridged eyebrow at her in amusement.

"By continuing the track we were on."

"That sounds somehow counterintuitive, my lovely, intelligent siha."

"I don't care," she mumbled, pulling him back down into a kiss. That motion grounded her and she realized they were back flat on the couch. His weak protests got lost in her enthusiastic kiss and he resumed divesting her of her shirt.

It was with delighted pleasure that Thane discovered her torso to now be bare. He couldn't call himself an expert on human wardrobe, but he'd expected her to wear one of those pesky underwear items – a brassiere, he'd discovered when Mordin had sent him the datapad on human culture and sexual preferences. A bra, humans called it, to protect one of females' erogenous zones. Thane pinned Shepard's wrists above her head and slowly took in her exposed chest. Shooting her one last, smirking glance, he lowered his head and rolled his tongue experimentally over a hardened nipple.

Shepard's hips jerking up against his was more than enough to inform him that the datapad had been correct. Quite enjoying this confirmation, Thane lathed her left nipple with attention, holding her wrists with one hand to allow the other to attend to her right, rolling it between thumb and forefinger, savoring her hitching breath in response. "I had worried for a moment that we were moving too quickly," Thane rumbled through a smile as she wriggled her legs impatiently beneath him.

"You worry too damn much," Shepard choked back, lifting her head to send him a smirk. "And you underestimate me."

He repositioned himself so that their hips were flush against each other and she let out a strangled groan as she felt the clear outline of his arousal through his pants. She slipped her hands free of his grasp and unzipped the leather, trying in vain to yank them down. "Jesus, these are tight," she griped.

Thane's deep chuckle pierced the haze of desire and stupor in her mind. "I don't want to be held back in battle by my wardrobe," he informed her as he began to pull down her spandex shorts.

"I'm not complaining here. The view is _fantastic_."

His hands froze at her hips. "Are you telling me that you ogle me during battle, siha?"

"What?" she demanded, affecting offense. "How dare you make such an assumption?" When had the word 'assumption' become so difficult to pronounce? Ah, she realized as his fingers ran cool and yet scorching over the skin of her hips. That's when.

"That would be most unprofessional, siha. Imagine if one of us were injured because you were too busy appreciating my anatomy."

"Worth it," she bit out. "Now get out of those pants. Consider it an order."

"Needy, are we?" He chuckled and rolled her shorts off. "_These_ are tight," he whispered softly, rubbing her skin where the spandex had bit in, tenderly erasing the red lines of irritation. His laughter got caught in his throat when he saw her, glistening and open and ready for him. "Beautiful," he whispered in a strangled voice, and before she could ask him what he meant the fingers of his right hand slide over her gleaming folds.

"_Oh_," Shepard gasped, twitching beneath his touch. The rough pad of his thumb made tantalizing circles right around the spot she needed him most. Her lilting groan was music to his ears. "God damn it, you've been talking to Mordin, haven't you?" she demanded breathlessly.

Thane's lips quirked up into a crooked smile. "Perhaps, siha. That, of course, means that you have, too."

"Of course I have. Most embarrassing moment of my life." One of her eyebrows twitched upward. "Did you like the vids he sent you?"

"They were most . . . informative." With no further ado, Thane ran his hands down her legs to her ankles, which he grabbed and pulled so that she was perpendicular to the couch and he was kneeling between her thighs. His eyes flashed to hers with a heat that scorched her skin before he delved in and sent a shock to her nerves so strong that she was reduced to a choked sob.

Drell tongues, it turned out, were much longer than human tongues – something she had failed to notice when tripping balls off of his saliva. But now, now with his mouth hot against her sensitive core, there was no ignoring it. Longer . . . and more dexterous. Her hands ran over the back of his head, keeping him in place as waves of sharp, electric pleasure stiffened through each of her muscles.

"_Thane_," she purred, thighs jerking as he ran a particularly rough lick up over the bundle of nerves at her center. "Christ, you're good at this."

Instead of using words to respond, he picked up the pace with his lips and tongue. Shepard wasn't complaining, not when he sent one last spark of pleasure through her body and _fuck_, that was good, great, beautiful, perfect enough to send her over the edge into an earth-shattering climax. She stuffed her fingers into her mouth to keep from screaming as a warning flashed through her head that Garrus was still very much in the same apartment. Thane peppered kisses around the insides of her thighs as she came down. When she peeled her eyelids back open, his face was parallel to hers and wearing a very well-deserved smirk.

"Amazing," she sighed, accepting his kiss. "Simply amazing."

"We cannot continue this here, siha," he murmured against her lips, grabbing her hips and yanking her up against his body. She laced her ankles behind his waist with a coo as he carried her swiftly around the couch. His foot caught on the end of the coffee table and he almost tripped, letting out a loose curse that she did not recognize under his breath and she laughed.

"Clumsy, Krios?"

"Something preoccupies my mind, if you can believe that," he retorted dryly, quickly transporting them down the dark hallway. Lights buzzed to life, illuminating the pathway to her bedroom. "Which door, siha?"

"Right. Last," she grunted back, currently exploring the scales under his jaw with her lips.

His body shuddered for a moment as he was temporarily floored before he found his strength again and pushed them into her bedroom. A large bed occupied the middle of the room and Thane quickly threw Shepard onto it before silently closing the door behind them.

Shepard giggled as she bounced to a landing, lifting herself up onto her elbows. Thane hungrily drank in the sight of her naked curves, outlined by her tan skin against the white sheets. She looked to be doing the same, green eyes alight with admiration.

"You're still wearing pants," she observed. "That's a problem, and it said in your dossier that you are a _great_ problem-solver."

"I would hate to disappoint," he purred, and in one swift, sinuous motion he slithered out of his pants.

_Oh._ Just . . . oh. Maybe "wow" as well. She wasn't surprised that he had ridges. No, she'd done enough research to be expecting that.

But there was no way for her to know before this moment that Thane was _hung_. Unconsciously, her tongue darted out to wet her now very dry lips. Thane chuckled and sauntered forward toward her. Her legs were dangling off of the edges of the bed and he quickly picked those up so she could squirm her way backward. Thane crawled his way up her body, pausing at certain places to lather her skin with wet kisses. She was trembling with need by the time he'd reached her mouth. His tongue grazed her bottom lip, warm and soft, a question posed in the soft stroke.

As a response, Shepard hitched her legs up over his waist. The head of his arousal brushed her wet folds and she cried out against his mouth.

"Are you certain, si –,"

"Jesus _fuck_, yes," Shepard interrupted, bucking her hips upward.

Thane chuckled at her obscenities and gripped her hips – hard, deliciously hard. Shepard pushed her hair out of her face to see Thane's burning gaze, alight with triumph, as he slowly entered her.

"Oh, Go-o-od," Shepard gasped, body wracking with pleasure as he pushed into her. One hand released from her hip to tangle in her hair, keeping her face tilted upward to his so that he could watch the ecstasy flash across her expression as he continued to shove into her. Her lips widened, eyes wild in pleasure.

_I love ridges._

Thane ducked his face into her throat, teeth grazing her skin to muffle a groan. Shepard's breath hitched as he hilted. His shoulders shuddered beneath her hands before he rolled his hips out and thrust hard back in.

A cry cut out between her lips at his rough push, fingers scrabbling against the muscles of his shoulders. The strange edges of his length hit her in all the right places – places she'd never had the pleasure of feeling before. Having only had human lovers previously (okay, and one turian lover, but she had been _super_ drunk and woke up the next morning so battered and bruised that she vowed herself off of the species as a whole; Garrus had found that story _particularly_ hilarious) Shepard had never had the pleasure of discovering how well a drell cock could discover the deepest, neglected parts of her.

She'd never forget it.

His name fluttered from her lips as she clenched her thighs, torso undulating beneath his body. Thane's body was powerful, built to take lives, and in bed that power was so fucking good. She panted and moaned and cried out, grabbing his hand and pulling his fused fingers into her mouth. She needed to do something, anything, to keep from losing her mind. His entire body shuddered with the combined pleasure of her rough suckling and the rolling contractions of her center around his arousal. She was tight and she was so beautiful, lips red and swollen from his kisses, cheeks flushed, hair mussed and spilled out around her face.

"My siha," he rumbled deep in his throat, capturing her lips into another kiss.

Her mind swimming from lust and hallucinations and the paralyzing _pleasure_, Shepard did her best to move her lips against his. Truthfully, it was a fucking miracle that she could even breathe with his cock shoved so far into her and his hands knotted in her hair and gripping her hip so hard it would bruise. He released her lips and kissed his way down her cheek to her neck, where he bit down.

Her orgasm had seemed far out of reach, but it came rushing through her in a wave of power that disarmed any and all previous inhibitions. Her body glowed in a burst of biotics as her scream lashed around the room. Thane grunted in surprise and ecstasy, savoring the sound of her climax as he felt his own come into play. Her teeth sank into his shoulder at a vain attempt to stifle her shriek, but the sting was enough. His last few thrusts became erratic and frantic and then he let out a wavering groan as he pumped his climax into her, hands fisting into the sheets beneath her head.

Shepard felt him spill hot within her and sighed, her muscles unbunching from the orgasm. Thane held himself up above her, a smile gracing his laps as he gasped softly for breath.

"Feeling . . . better?" she panted, tenderly stroking his cheek with a shaky thumb.

"Considerably," he replied, the growl of his passion subdued back into his normal low rasp. He blinked and flexed his shoulders, as if testing his strength, before rolling down beside her. He grabbed her hand and brushed his lips over her palm, closing his eyes. "I shall cherish the memories."

Shepard let out a quivering laugh. "Would that be considered pornography?"

"No," he answered firmly, turning and spearing her with those black, depthless eyes, twinkling with amusement. "Because it is for me, siha, and for me alone."

Shepard thought for a moment, before nodding and cuddling into his side. "I guess I can handle that," she murmured.

He chuckled into her hair, pressing his lips softly against her smooth strands. "I'm glad to hear that."

Their hands continued to gently caress foreign skin, rediscovering territory that had only been hastily spanned before. Thane explored the sensitivity of the human foot and how a few light tickles on the sole would make Shepard erupt into a violent fit of laughter. Conversely, the red slits beneath Thane's jaw proved to be a bigger treasure trove for sensation than she'd originally thought and he squirmed as she massaged the ridges there. Satisfied that they had learned each other's bodies as much as possible, they curled up beneath the no-longer pristine sheets and gave themselves over to sleep.

* * *

Thane moved smoothly through the many bodies in the Citadel, Shepard watching and glaring in envy of his natural grace. Why couldn't she move like that? She felt like an overweight hippo in comparison.

"Hey."

She turned, a large, taloned hand gripping her forearm and stopping her. A glance over her shoulder told her that Thane had not realized Garrus's interruption of their journey yet. "What?" she hissed, frowning as the turian held her up.

Garrus snorted. "Don't act so indignant. You're not the one who was kept up all night by shrieks and giggles and all sorts of other crazy animal sounds." He paused, clicking his mandibles thoughtfully. "Well, I guess you were, too, but you at least had fun while you weren't sleeping."

Shepard ducked her face into her hands, burning in mortification. "Garrus, I am so sorry," she mumbled, muffled against her palms.

"Yeah, well, consider it a favor that I didn't burst in and end your fun."

"Thank you, o generous turian," Shepard dead-panned, bowing dramatically to him.

He shrugged nonchalantly. "What can I say? I may not be human, but I can still be a bro."

"Please never refer to yourself as that, ever again."

Footsteps alerted them to Thane's approaching presence. "Is everything well?" he asked in mild concern, glancing back and forth between them. Judging by Garrus's smirk and Shepard's slightly embarrassed smile, there was no real reason to be worried.

"Peachy-keen," Shepard sighed, another one of those confusing human phrases. Neither drell nor turian would much compare their current situation to fruit. But Shepard shook her head, grumbling to herself as she walked away.

The two remaining men shared a glance. Without a word, Garrus held out a fist. Allowing himself a smug smile, Thane tapped it with his own. With a nonverbal promise that the exchange would never be spoken of again, the men turned forward and followed after their fearless leader.


End file.
